BENNETT'S PHYLACTERY: VDARE Going Down With Ship

I've written about prosecutorial abuse, I didn't need to learn about it first hand!

[PETER BRIMELOW writes: In the next few days, I have to force myself to write a comprehensive update on what’s happened since New York Attorney General Letitita James’ lawfare battered us into suspending the VDARE.com website more than two years ago. Gearing up, I came across this incisive summary of the issues involved, which I missed because it was posted long before Greg Johnson persuaded me to resurface on substack. Two of the point it makes are rarely noted. (1) We fought James’ flagrantly excessive subpoena demands because we wanted to protect the identities of our writers (and donors), which we had every reason to believe she would leak. I still find it incredible that no judge has recognized the obvious First Amendment issue. (2) James was able to inflict the $1 million-plus “investigation” costs that forced us to suspend even before actually suing us. This, of course, is the type of prosecutorial abuse about which I interviewed Paul Craig Roberts in FORBES Magazine over 25 years ago. I didn’t need to experience it first-hand.

Subsequently we have indeed been sued as the VDARE Foundation and also personally. The legal action is accelerating. More later, alas.

VDARE goes down with the ship rather than give up their writers

(First published on Bennett’s Phylactery, April 9, 2024)

The selective prosecution of political enemies is nothing new, but they used to maintain at least the performance of objectivity.

In 2018, New York Attorney General Letitia James publicly campaigned on a promise to target her political enemies, and got puff pieces from NPR and the Washington Post.

Now, she is threatening anti-immigration nonprofit VDARE with bankruptcy unless they divulge the identities of their anonymous writers as part of a subpoena regarding the Berkeley Springs Castle in West Virginia.

Obviously the identities of those writers has nothing to do with the provenance of their property, any more than a New York Attorney General has anything to do with a real estate purchase in West Virginia — but unfortunately VDARE incorporated their nonprofit in New York (back in 1999, when that wasn’t an obviously crazy thing to do), which puts them in Letitia James’ jurisdiction.

Without ever explicitly charging them with any wrongdoing, James has succeeded in bleeding VDARE for over a million dollars. The process is the punishment.

VDARE could, of course, hand over the names of their writers (who would certainly become unemployable in any corporate setting) — but the Brimelows have made the courageous decision to defy the order, and close up shop rather than roll on their people.

Two important lessons from this fiasco:

1. Nonprofit status is dangerous for anyone with unauthorized opinions.

Nothing the Brimelows did was out of the ordinary or at odds with the wishes of their donors — but the accounting and reporting requirements imposed by 501(c)(3) status are onerous, and defending your actions against a hostile and determined State is probably not worth the tax breaks.

Of course, this amounts to a massive subsidy for leftist action in the US through tax-advantaged NGOs — but not much can be done about that until red-state AGs are willing to respond in kind.

2. Minimize your professional and investment exposure to blue jurisdictions.

Incorporating in Delaware was a $55 billion mistake for Elon Musk. Douglass Mackey got a kangaroo court in Brooklyn (despite posting from Manhattan) because the prosecution argued that the data passed through Brooklyn on its way to Georgia and California. Donald Trump’s real estate holdings in New York created the justification for a $454 million penalty (for perspective, his 2016 campaign cost $600 million).

These are high-profile lawfare cases, but even basic property rights are increasingly at risk. Squatting laws have made ownership of real estate — especially rental properties, but in some cases even personal homes — a very dicey proposition in Atlanta, New York, Seattle, and other leftist-controlled cities.

You should get out if you can.